"Sister, control yourself. You will be ill if you cry like that. Don't kneel, sit down."
The Superior's tone was very kind, and the note of sympathy shook Alex afresh.
"Tell me what it is. Don't be afraid."
"I want to leave the convent—I want to be released from my vows."
She had never meant to say it—she had never known that such a thought was in her mind, but the moment that the words were uttered, the first sense of relief that she had felt surged within her.
It was the remembrance of that rush of relief that enabled her, sobbing, to repeat the shameful recantation, in the face of the Superior's grave, pitiful urgings and assurance that she did not know what she was saying.
After that—an appalling crisis that left her utterly exhausted and with no vestige of belief left in her own ultimate salvation—everything was changed.
She was treated as an invalid, and sent to lie down instead of joining the community at the hour of recreation, the Superior herself devoted almost an hour to her every day, and nearly all her work was taken away, so that she could walk alone round the big verger and the enclosed garden, and read the carefully-selected Lives and Treatises that the Superior chose for her.
Gradually some sort of poise returned to her. She could control her tears, and drink the soups and tisanes that were specially prepared and put before her, and as the year advanced, she could feel the first hint of Spring stirring in her exhaustion. She was devoid alike of apprehension and of hope.
No solution appeared to her conceivable, save possibly that of her own death, and she knew that none would be attempted until the return of the Superior-General from South America.